


Signifying nothing

by Ruler_of_Nope_Island



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Cannibalism, Fix-It of Sorts, Identity Issues, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, They survive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 12:25:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15194750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruler_of_Nope_Island/pseuds/Ruler_of_Nope_Island
Summary: Our lads survive. Sort of.





	Signifying nothing

Tozer hadn’t paid much attention to Hickey; another surly, scrawny hand. One who ran his mouth too often and - according to others - was a Mary Anne. Must be a sailor thing - he never knew a Marine who was that way. Sailors were labour. Marines were soldiers. That was the difference between them.

 

*

All men grow restless after years away from doxies and sweethearts; solitary relief is not so solitary when you’re all in hammocks and Irving is coming back from late watch, on the prowl for self-abuse. There was something Mary Anne-ish about that too, Tozer thought, the way he’d single men out and give them a stern lecture on the immorality of onanism. Not that Irving would ever try it on with him, of course.

*

 

He started paying a bit more attention around the time that Hickey’s trousers had been pulled to around his ankles and had his arse lashed. His skin looked to be as soft as a woman’s, and he wasn’t as hairy as most. Perhaps that’s what made him like what he did - his body was more womanly, so were his desires. A trick of nature made him crave men’s company. In that instance, it was not a failure of morals, perhaps, but a bodily disorder. Not healthy, not desirable, but there.

 

*

Tozer thought, more than once, about how he could get Hickey on his knees. Not outright buggery, of course. He could help Hickey get what he wanted, and he could close his eyes and pretend it was a woman. That wet, warm heat around his cock. He missed that. And with his mouth full, Hickey would not be able to speak. 

*

Heather is dead and Sergeant Solomon Tozer is afraid. The entire world has burned down. If doctors can murder, what does that mean? The Captain is there and he is not. The officers don’t speak to him of what is happening, of what the plans are. Marines are always the first to die and the last to be mourned, it seems. 

*

Solomon is mesmerised by the way blood spills over Hickey’s lips and drips into his beard. How his eyes glow in the firelight. How he is so very sure about everything. Hickey puts his rough hands on Solomon’s face and he has to fight down the urge to mouth at his palms, suck on his fingers. How did this happen?

 

*

They are safe, warm; unspeakable acts have carried them here, to some trading post, the sole survivors. Everything they did, everything they were, was left to the carrion birds on the ice. New names. New stories.  
“Think of yourself as someone new,” Cornelius - no, John, Jack to my friends- had said. “Be that person.”  
“It’s not that simple,” he had protested.  
“It is,” said Jack, smiling. He’d kept all of his teeth, all of his looks. “I’ve done it before.”

*

In the light he is Zachariah; in the dark he is Solomon. He stares at the shadowy outline of Cornelius or Jack, wondering if the other man goes through this same process; suddenly finding himself split into two. He wishes he could be Zachariah all time. Zachariah feels no guilt. He can stand behind Jack and they thieve and swindle and fight and Zachariah laughs, for he is an empty man who loves to hurt. 

Solomon though - Solomon gets no rest. 

*

Is is Zachariah who wants Jack or Solomon who wants Cornelius? He’s stopped trying to puzzle it out. Instead he reaches out, grasps the other’s man’s cock, and squeezes.  
“Jesus Christ,” the other gasps, and grips his wrist. “Don’t tell me you use your own that roughly.”  
He leans down, kisses the other man, who squeaks in surprise. The beard is strange, but not off putting. Solomon thinks that it feels too natural to be unnatural. He remembers feeling that the frigid, bone ache of the north would never leave him; he also remembers the first time he put on new clothes, sat down in front of a real fire. This is what it feels like. 

*

“You’re too obvious,” Jack hisses at him. “Stop looking at me like that.”  
“Like what?”  
“Like you want to eat me.”  
Zachariah raises his eyebrows at that; it is not Jack but Cornelius who rolls his eyes.  
“You know what I mean.”  
That was a new thing that they’d done, just last night; he’d sucked a cock, enjoyed it, loved the feeling of it in his mouth and the way the other man had stifled his moans by biting down on his fist.

*

He’s killed before. He’s murdered before. He’s done so much worse, all for Cornelius. So why, when he slits his rival’s throat, does Cornelius turn away from him? They sleep together but do not sleep and do nothing but listen to each other’s breathing. His attentions towards his man are swiftly rejected, but Jack does not leave him. And all this turmoil because neither Solomon nor Zachariah could stand to see their man in another’s arms. 

*

He is of one mind when they finally fuck; whoever he is, right now, he loves it, loves the man he is fucking, the tight, slick heat of him, the sweat on his skin, those eyes, that mouth, the way the other spends again, even after having spent before in his mouth. It is perfect.   
“I had a strange thought, once,” his man says, after they are both clean and beneath soft blankets. “During all that business in the north.”  
“Yeah?”  
“I thought to cut off my tongue. Offer it to the monster.”   
“Why, in God’s name?”  
“I wanted to be its master.”  
“Christ,” he says, because what’s he supposed to say to that? “Glad you didn’t, though. I think I enjoy it more than that thing ever would.”  
He thinks nothing of it, now; to wrap his arms around another man, enjoy the solid weight of him.   
“Mmm. That you do.” There is something strange about his tone; some hidden meaning that he cannot discern. But there is much about Jack he cannot puzzle out. Zachariah supposes it’s part of the charm.

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly don't know how these two would survive and TBH I'm not bothering to work it out.


End file.
